Windows 10 & Windows 8

LiveReload is one of the most popular development tools out there that helps you, as a web developer, to auto refresh or reload the browser when file changes are made in a directory you specified. LiveReload, costs $9.99 for Mac, is free on Windows. However, it comes with a catch. It doesn’t always work. Often times, you will find it crashes far more than you actually need it to reload the browser manually.

If your main development browser is Chrome, you can configure auto reload without additional third party tools

A while ago, chrome introduced a new way to debug your web app. Remote debugging, allows you to debug an app remotely. In this case, we are going to use Sublime Text 2 / 3 to remote debug in chrome. One of the packages that enables this feature also comes with a handy feature that is the ability to auto reload upon changes. Hence, if you are using Sublime Text as your text editor, and chrome as your browser, then there is no need for you to use any additional tools to help you reload the browser.

Here is the setup in order to make it work.

First you need to install package control into Sublime Text, if you haven’t done so you can easily find out if the following command shows you the screenshot below. Just press Ctrl + Shift + P and type package control. If you can see the package control listed below, then you are good to go.

After entering “Package Install” press enter, then type “Web Inspector”. You will see top two results are Web Inspector and Web Inspector 3. Depends on which version of Sublime Text you are using select the one accordingly. Use Web Inspector for Sublime Text 2. In our case, we have already installed, so the package will not show in the list.

This will launch a chrome, and you will have the ability to select which tab you’d like to hook the remote debugger on. Press Ctrl + Shift + R again, you will see the “Start debugging” option. From there on, any change you’ve made in the sublime text, the browser will auto refresh upon file saving.

This approach is pretty reliable compare to LiveReload. Give it a try and you might find it useful !